Tenison over a Chess board
by finmagik
Summary: Lord Vetinari and Susan Sto Helit meet to play chess. However certain, warm almost primal feelings are begining to make it uncomfortable. NOTE: This takes place between Hogfather and Jingo. VetSus
1. Chapter 1

Blue eyes met blue eyes. They gauge each other. Both of them are trying to penetrate the each is trying defenses. Eyes may be the windows to the souls but they keep the shutters closed. They both know one thing. They are falling in love. It is exciting and terrifying, but not entirely unexpected. 

The eye contact lasts barely a three seconds. Then someone blinks and, they go back to staring at the chess board. This game seemed so important just fifteen minutes ago. Now neither one can remember whose move it was. So they both pretend to study the board.

He's older than my father, Susan scolds herself. Besides this is stupid. He just invites me here, so That he could examine me like an insect in a jar. I'm a curiosity to him. Then why do I keep accepting his invitations? Oh, bugger.

She sighs, glances up for a moment. His head is lowered, his chin resting in his hand. He is intent on the game. She looks down again before he notices.

I don't need this, Havelock thought. I don't need her. This could become very distracting. This is getting out of hand. I'll end it tonight. He shifts in his chair. She looks up at him. For a brief moment he can imagine caressing her face stroking the white-faded scars. That's a message from the hind brain, the primal id, he supposed he'd totally destroyed at this point in his life. However, I haven't felt like this in many years. Neither of us will let it get out of control. It could be even, positive.

Both of them decide to make a move at the same time. It's strange and stupid, really. Their hands brush. Two sets of cold blue eyes meet again. Their hands clasp. Their heads move closer until. their lips are only millimeters apart.

Then the door handle turns. The hands unclasp. However they are not quick enough.

"Sir? I am not interrupting anything?"

Drumknott said as he entered with the tea.

"No, of course not," Vetinari said in a calm confident, voice, "I was just demonstrating a new strategy for Ms. Sto Helit."

"Yes, but I don't think it's any good," Susan said, and no one would doubt that chess was the foremost in her thoughts.

"I never claimed it was," Vetinari said.  
"I brought the tea, you that said it you wanted it now sir," Drumknott said, holding up his tray. "Also the chocolate biscuits Ms. Sto Helit wanted."

"Jolly good," Vetinari said. "You are dismissed, Drumknott."

The efficient little man puts down his tray and leaves out of the room. They both drink their tea in

silence they moved to the opposite corners of the room. Both are waiting for something. Neither one wants to go first.

"I think we should finish the game next week," He said. "I have other things to attend to."

"Yes, me too. I've got papers to grade, "she said. "I'll use the secret passage"  
"Good night, Ms. Sto Helit," he said.  
"Good night your Lordship," she said.


	2. Chapter 2

"I think you shouldn't be doing this sir." Drumknott said. 

"Really? It is my own free time, I can do what I want with it," Vetinari said. "I don't question what you with your free time. Even though I have heard it involves singing, while dressed as woman under the stage name Kitty Shebangbang."

"Well, it's just a hobby sir," Drumknott said cautiously, he was blushing a bit

"So is chess," Vetinari said.

Lord Vetinari went back to his paperwork, and Drumknott left.

However Drumknott was right, he shouldn't be doing this. He should be sorting out what to do that crazed gigantic hedgehog that was rampaging through some districts of the city. He should be reading the copy of that secret letter, which his spies had procured from the Klatchian embassy. Maybe even work on the sewers, which was really just a pipe dream. The watch and the wizards would deal with the hedgehog. Remaking the public sanitation system was really to ambitious for now. As for the letter, he read it quickly and found it contained what he expected. He already had plan about Klatch, which would just have some details that he could figure out as the situation unfolded.

He really should cancel the chess game this week. Perhaps canceling it forever would be a good idea. He was in control of himself, and he never let himself get carried away. Now, he was becoming infatuated with this young woman.  
At first he had been intrigued because she was rumored to be Death's granddaughter, so when there was opportunity to meet her, he took it, just to get a look at her. Then it was her mind that fascinated him, it had been a while since he had met someone as intelligent, someone who thoughts were as sharp and clear as his own. They had become friends well, almost friends.  
Then he began thaw slowly, and the warmth he felt towards her wasn't unpleasant.  
He caught himself wondering only yesterday if she liked dogs. Or if Wuffles would like her. Which was stupid really, because the chess games all happened long after Wuffles was asleep for the evening. Now, his mind kept returning to that night last week when their hands touched, when she was so close he feel her breath on his skin.  
These types of frivolous thoughts only occupied his mind for a minute or two each day. They didn't impede him much in his vocation. He didn't scrawl Susan Vetinari on the edges of paper or write love poems comparing her to winter's day. That would be really silly. He didn't remember exactly how he had felt when he was with Lady Margolotta, that was different that was like being stuck in the middle of a tornado. He could function without Susan easily, he just didn't want too anymore. He would see her this week.

Susan was grading papers. She had hardly had this job three months, she needed a real job. She still lesson plans, to do. However she found herself pausing, in the middle of this hard work which she really needed to finish. She thought of his long white fingers over her hand, the feel of his skin. She knows what she is waiting for, around this time, a little messenger dressed in black comes to her window, not the door the because her landlady would get suspicious. He knocks politely and gives her a little note, and a very small box of chocolates from Wienrich & Boettcher. The note would be short and written in neat copperplate handwriting telling her what day and what time. She used to look forward only to the chocolates, but lately the notes were what she wanted.

The messenger hadn't arrived, no knock at the door, or tap on the window. Maybe he had state business that couldn't be delayed, maybe he had decided to end their weekly game or maybe he found someone else to play chess with. The last idea struck her as the worst. It was only a game after all. He doesn't even really care, she thought. He's just manipulating me, he has been doing that all along. He just wants to see how I'll react. He just wants me as a plaything. Even if I do get invited I'll say no. I should end this.

There was a tap on the window. She looked over at the sad looking little man on the sill. She opened it. He handed her the note. She read it, these notes never said much. Before she could really think she had gone to her desk and dashed off a reply and handed it to him. Then he was gone.

"Damn," she swore, after the man had left. She hadn't meant to say yes, but she did.


	3. Chapter 3

_"You stand there so nice in your blizzard of ice, please let into the storm."_- Leonard Cohen.

Another night another game of chess She was white, he was black. The want he felt for her, made him feel so sick and weak inside like he was spotty, gawky, adolescent again.

On the other side of board she was wondering, what would happen, if for example they somehow ended up making love on the desk. She was sure Drumknott would be discreet, about it. It was tempting, however she knew wouldn't be able to look herself in mirror if they did it. Also she wouldn't be able to look in his ice blue eyes either. Then there was the bit of her that was just saying it was a body thing, a silly, human desire. And he'd be dead soon anyways, not now but in a decade or so perhaps. He had such a high risk job, not every crossbow bolt would miss, not every drop of poison could be detected, not every coup could be crushed in the bud, or just plain overwork could take its toll…

"Ms. Sto Helit?"

"Mm?"

"Are you aware it's your move?"

"Oh, thank you." she said.

She looked down at the chessboard, a bit dazed. She slid one her bishops a space, then looked up at him expectantly.

"Ah," he said.

She looked at board. She could have had him in check! Moving that bishop was a terrible mistake. "bugger."

He was studying the board again. It would be easy to win, usually she a much better opponent. The only others he had found who played chess near his level where Drumknott the Librarian and Dr. Dinwiddie. Drumknott had tendency to throw the game, if he was glanced at the wrong way.# The Librarian was a very sore loser. Dr. Dinwiddie had gone mad.  
He would win easily tonight. As long he didn't look up from the board and into her eyes. If he did, then all would be lost. He loathed the longing he felt, he hated the almost tangible need he felt to touch her. He considered and thought, he made his move.  
It could have jarred someone without the iron of Susan's personality. She never expected this, and yet it just happened.

She glanced at his face, he was smirking, then back at the chess board, the black Knight was right alongside the white King.

"Checkmate," he said.

He looked up, and their eyes met. They kissed, neither one really started it, It was short clipped almost formal. He stroked the scars on her cheek, she closed her eyes and reached across the board to touch his face. They kissed again, this time it was deeper and less elegant. The dam had broken, the flood had began. They kissed over and over again, everything was skittering out of control. Then her elbows knocked the chessmen onto the floor.  
They glanced down at the fallen pieces, it was like a being dosed with cold water. They broke apart. They were panting.  
"We shouldn't continue in this foolishness " he started.

"We can't, do this." she said.

He got to his feet unsteadily, took his cane and walked to the other side of the room. She knelt down and started to pick up the chessmen.

"You don't have to do that, Ms. Sto Helit,"  
He said.

"Yes, your Lordship I do, how we will explain why they fell in the first place," She said.

He watched her. Near the end of meticulous rearranging, she looked over at him. He just there watching her cold, pale, his long black robes reminding her awfully of a column. He just stood there watching her, she couldn't stand feeling his eyes upon her.

"I don't need you," she said shaking her head.

"I don't need you either," he said. He suddenly kneeling close to her, How could he be so quiet and so fast. "But, I do want you, Susan."

He took her in his arms and kissed her deeply and tenaciously she did not resist. They kissed and held each on the floor.

A little while later Drumknott came bearing the usual tea tray. He had opened the door crack when he glimpsed what the inhabitants of that room where doing. His eyes widened, he had worried about it but didn't expect it, his lordship normally wasn't so rash. He closed the door quietly, sighed and shook his head.


End file.
